Grassroots digital commons for a
bottom-up transition towards
(urban) sustainability
Adrien Labaeye
PhD student, Humboldt University in Berlin
Co-founder, transition>>lab
Degrowth Leipzig 2014 - 4th of September 2014
Content
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Information & urban sustainability
The commons approach
Social and grassroots innovation
Explorative cases
Discussion
Conclusion
Degrowth Leipzig 2014 - 4th of September 2014
Information and (urban)
sustainability
• Smart cities to deliver sustainability? (Toppeta 2010)
• Smart cities approach biased towards (Kramers et al.
2013):
– Business: IBM, Cisco, Schneider Electric, Siemens, etc.
– Local governments
• The urban governance of information
– Information is a resource: “Information is the new oil”
– Information governance is a battlefield of environmental
governance (Mol 2008): power and politics
– The centrality of cities:
• Flows of information, ecological footprint, risks, innovation
Degrowth Leipzig 2014 - 4th of September 2014
The commons approach
• Data/information/knowledge as a commons
(Hess & Ostrom 2007)
• Commons = resource shared by a group of people
and vulnerable to social dilemmas (Ostrom)
– Enclosure, pollution, overuse, commodification
• Commons (resource), commoning (practice),
commoners (users)
• Looking beyond market and state: selforganized commons (Ostrom 1990)
Degrowth Leipzig 2014 - 4th of September 2014
Social & grassroots innovation
• Transition theory: from niches to mainstream
– Niches are protected spaces where learning,
experiments, radical innovation happen (Geels 2004)
• Moving the focus from technologies towards
social and institutional arrangements
– Strategic niche management and social innovation
(Witkamp et al. 2011): eg. Social business
– Grassroots innovation (Seyfang & Smith 2007; Seyfang
& Haxeltine 2012; Seyfang et al. 2014): eg. TT,
community energy, local currencies
Degrowth Leipzig 2014 - 4th of September 2014
Questions?
• How are grassroots/bottom-up information
resources self-organized (ie. Outside the
market and state)
• What are the outcomes of such self-organized
information resources?
• What are the implications of these selforganized information resources (digital
commons) for the degrowth approach?
Degrowth Leipzig 2014 - 4th of September 2014
Explorative cases
• http://flaechen-in-leipzig.de
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Community gardening in Leipzig, Germany
Public data managed by civil society and grassroots
Local community
Online and offline interaction
• Map of community supported agriculture initiatives (FR)
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Bringing consumers to local farmers
Map: grassroots data/information (collaborative)
Trans-local community
Online and offline interaction
Degrowth Leipzig 2014 - 4th of September 2014
Discussion
• http://flaechen-in-leipzig.de
– Local transition in the management and use of information with
potential important impact on governance of land use
– Outcomes/interactions: Quality of data (up-date)? Sustainability of
initiative? Digital divide? Conflict?
– Local niche: supports replication of community gardens? Common
vision: making vacant space available to communities, building local
network
• Map of CSA in Rhônes-Alpes, France
– Emergence of self-organized information resource
– Outcomes/interaction: over 120,000 views for Isère map since 2010,
fragmentation of maps (innefficient), collaborativeness ensures
sustainability
– Niche: increase visibility and accessibility of grassroots innovation
niche (empowering/enabling), building a network/community, support
for translation to mainstream?
Degrowth Leipzig 2014 - 4th of September 2014
#14MMM mapping of the mappings
 Collaborative, sharing, solidarity economy,
commons, CSA, urban gardening, DIY, DIT,
hacker spaces/FabLab, fruit picking, etc.
Data from http://14mmm.org
Degrowth Leipzig 2014 - 4th of September 2014
Conclusion
• Actors (commoners) involved:
– ‘traditional’ local grassroots groups, civil society organizations but also native
online collaboration (developers, mappers…)  commons-based peer
production
• Outcomes? Efficiency, equity, sustainability
– Availability is not access: problem of digital divide
• Grassroots digital commons:
– Enable networking, replication, diffusion of social innovations/grassroots
practices without market or state support
– Open up new horizons in research methods for mapping and data collection:
action research?
• Commons approach changes focus:
– From technology + businesses + financial capital + gov intervention (eg.
subisidies)
– Towards shared resource+ collective action + social capital + self-governance
mechanisms (eg. CC licenses)
Degrowth Leipzig 2014 - 4th of September 2014
Thank you!
Adrienlabaeye@gmail.com
@alabaeye
transitionlab.de
14mmm.org (mapping alternatives)
Degrowth Leipzig 2014 - 4th of September 2014